‘Frida’ Celebrates Kahlo’s Life but Lacks Artist’s Power

Suffering and endurance--accomplished with a brightly textured, manic style--are legacies of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, since her death in 1954 ended years of physical torment caused by a horrible accident. Her other hell was being married (twice) to the famous womanizing mural artist Diego Rivera.

But Kahlo was not without a sense of humor. How else could she have said, “I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down. The other accident is Diego.”

This quotation is used along with others from Kahlo’s diaries in “Frida,” a one-person dance drama by New Mexico-based dancer Licia Perea at the Keck Theater at Occidental College on Saturday night. But a sense of humor is absent, as is the heavyweight presence one might expect when it comes to Kahlo.

Perea’s own style is lyrical and light, as she uses danced passages, stylized gesture and spoken text in several vignettes to taped music (mostly moody piano) by Daniel P. Davis and Brian Folkins-Amador. The first act, in which Kahlo comes off as a victim of obsession with Rivera, contains some flamenco footwork and balletic swirling.

In the second act, the redemptive power of Kahlo’s work is suggested in the text, although the paintings and drawings themselves are considerably upstaged throughout as slides of them are superimposed on a design of what looks like a broken rose.

Kahlo’s likeness is suggested by costumes that copy those in her self-portraits, and the images are occasionally, momentarily affecting. But any hope of deep resonance with this version of Kahlo’s life is disrupted by Perea’s wide-eyed expressions and sing-song voice. Confusing dramatic delivery with the tones used for storytelling to very small children renders this Frida powerless.